School Speed Legislators Still on the Wrong Track

Last
week the Green Party announced a new policy to make walking
and cycling to school safer, with a proposal to invest $200
million in new transport infrastructure based on where
possible separating cyclists from trafc.

‘It’s
only tinkering’ says Lucinda Rees of New Zealand School
Speeds. the Christchurch-based organisation which is
campaigning for a law that slows drivers to a consistent
national speed limit of 30km/h outside all schools when
children are coming and going.

‘We should get the
basics right rst all over the country. That would make
every school crossing a lot safer, before any funding is
handed to local councils, and help drivers stay within the
law.

'The $200 million would only help a select few
children. Throughout the country there are schools where
speeds of up to 100km/h are within the law. The World Health
Organisation recommends speed limits of no more than 30km/h
outside schools, yet here the lowest speed limit for schools
is usually 40km/h and that only in cities.'

The
‘suggested' passing distance of 1.5 metres between cars
and cycles is also unrealistic, says Rees. 'With or without
a law some drivers will continue to give a 0 metre gap to
cyclists. Even if $200 million is spent on the exclusive
separate cycleways there will still be plenty of children
who have no access to them.

'Until there is a law that
keeps drivers a safe distance from cyclists with a minimum
of 1 metre most parents will still be reluctant to let their
children cycle.

‘I think that any revenue derived from
nes collected from drivers who break the laws, should go
back into road safety.'

Consistent laws are the missing
link, says Rees. The introduction of a nationally-applied
school-time 30km/h law should be a priority. Then spend the
$200 million to take safety levels even higher, she
says.

'The Green Party wants to set a target of getting
more than 50 percent of kids walking or cycling to school by
2020’ she says. ‘Their intentions are good, but it’s
glaringly obvious that the 30km/h and a safe passing gap for
cyclists should be applied rst.'

The quashing of the convictions of Teina Pora for the rape and murder of Susan Burdett in 1992 has shone a spotlight once again on a major gap in the New Zealand justice system.

To all intents and purposes, access by New Zealanders to the Privy Council has now been closed. Yet the number of times in recent years when the Privy Council has quashed the findings of New Zealand courts has demonstrated that we are regularly(a) jailing the wrong person or(b) arriving at guilty verdicts on grounds sufficiently flawed as to raise serious doubts that a miscarriage of justice has occurred. More>>

ALSO:

WorkSafe NZ has laid one charge against the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) in relation to the shooting at the MSD Ashburton office on 1 September 2014 in which two Work and Income staff were killed and another was injured. More>>

New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters has announced his intention to stand in the Northland by-election, citing his own links to the electorate and ongoing neglect of the region by central government. More>>